


The Mystery Thief

by PotterArt



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Auror Draco Malfoy, Auror Harry Potter, Auror Partners, Auror trope, Auror!Draco, Draco Malfoy Has Long Hair, Drarry, Drarry Squad Secret Santa Gift Exchange, Fluff, Jealous!Harry, M/M, Pining, auror!Harry, flangst, rated T+ for some cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 08:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13162803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PotterArt/pseuds/PotterArt
Summary: Written for the 2017 Drarry Squad Secret Santa Gift Exchange on TumblrInbetween having to figure out a Mystery Thief, dealing with an old lady who's cat obsession could rival that of Mrs. Figg, and having to work together with his former arch-nemesis as his Auror partner, Harry Potter just can't seem to catch a break.And when had Malfoy even grown his hair out?!





	The Mystery Thief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SailorSlash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailorSlash/gifts).



> This is written for the wonderful sailorslash on Tumblr, who requested the Auror partner trope for her Secret Santa gift.
> 
> Also a huge 'thank you' to the Drarry Squad mods who organized this event. You're awesome!
> 
> I hope you enjoy my writing, and Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays!

It was six in the morning and Harry was bloody exhausted. He'd barely dragged himself out of bed that day after he'd been working on his most recent case late into the night again, but without a partner at his side, he simply wasn't making any progress.

Not that he missed his previous partner much, mind you. The junior Auror had been tripping over his own feet constantly in his hurry to comply to Harry's every request. His hopeless idolization had been grating on Harry's nerves for a while now, but when the fool had gotten himself injured during a raid, trying to shield Harry from a curse that he could've bloody well just blocked himself -

Harry's office door slammed open without as much as a knock and Ron strolled into the room. He looked far too cheerful for this time of the day, Harry decided.

"Oi, mate, I've got some files from Head Auror Robards for ya," Ron said. He threw an official looking folder on Harry's desk without a care in the world, sending Harry's carefully organized case files scattering all over the place.

Harry was too tired to care at this point. He merely grunted something resembling a greeting in reply.

"I reckon they assigned you a new partner," Ron went on. That managed to perk Harry up a little, enough for him to muster up the energy to raise his head from its resting place on the table and drag the thick folder across the desk.

"Maybe try to make this one last more than four months, I think they're running out of junior Aurors to partner ya up with," Ron snickered.

Harry, however, didn’t really hear his best friend's comment. He was far too preoccupied with the person on the first page of the file. "That might be a little difficult," Harry groaned.

The person looking up at him from the included photograph was no other than his former arch-nemesis and fellow Hogwarts student, the one and only Draco sodding Malfoy. Great. That was just what Harry needed to top off this picture-perfect morning.

Ron, the wanker, took one look at the application form and burst out laughing. He somehow managed to choke out a "Good sodding luck, mate!" before he stumbled out of Harry's office with a lazy wave over his shoulder, chuckling, no doubt about to tell the entire Auror apartment about Harry's latest partner assignment.

Harry had heard somewhere that there were actual bets going on about how long his next partner would last. It was not his fault that they were usually more focused on him than their actual case, for Merlin's sake!

With a resigned sigh Harry decided to at least find out what Malfoy had been up to during the last couple of years. He drew the file closer once more and started reading.

Apparently, Malfoy had completed his N.E.W.T.s from home after his hearing in the Ministry. He had, much to the public’s dismay, not been thrown into Azkaban along with most of the other Death Eaters who had been captured and judged after the final battle.

This was mostly thanks to Harry, who had testified on Malfoy’s behalf at his trial in front of the Wizengamot. He'd told them about the time Malfoy had refused to identify Harry at the Manor, and how he'd thrown Harry his wand during the final battle, which had ultimately lead to Voldemort's defeat.

He'd partly spoken up for Malfoy for his mother's sake. She did save Harry's life after all, so the least he could do was save her son from Azkaban.

Instead of being locked up, Malfoy had been put on probation for two years, during which he had travelled around for a while. Afterwards he had been accepted into Auror training, although quite reluctantly, due to his dark history.

Despite everything, Malfoy had also taken part in the Battle of Hogwarts, and the Auror force still hadn't quite reached the headcount it had once possessed before so many had fallen victim to the Wizarding War. They needed more members, and if there was anyone who had fought on the frontlines of that war, and was mentally capable of doing the job, they'd take him.

Harry had to close his eyes and firmly shake his head as memories of Mad Eye and Tonks invaded his thoughts. He should be concentrating on the present, not the past. Right. Back to Malfoy's file.

He had completed his Auror training with exceptionally good marks, but that was not what made Harry frown in confusion. It said that Malfoy had completed his training about three months ago. Months. Usually junior Aurors were partnered up with senior Aurors a few days after they completed their basic training, the less time wasted the better.

Harry's curiosity got the best of him and he decided to dig a little deeper, ignoring his actual case for the time being. He discovered several letters from fellow Aurors, explaining to Robards why they couldn't possibly work together with Malfoy.

"Death Eater", "Criminal Record", "Not someone to trust" were just some of the excuses they'd come up with.

Harry felt an odd pang of sympathy for Malfoy go through him. He knew all too well what it felt like to be utterly unwanted, and the original annoyance he'd felt at the prospect of working together with Malfoy faded a little.

At the bottom of the folder Harry found a handwritten note from Robards, stating that Harry was, as of late, the only Auror without a partner whom they hadn't tried to pair up with Malfoy before. In fact, Malfoy would take up the vacant spot in Harry's office today in about-

In that moment a knock sounded on Harry's door. Quickly shoving Malfoys folder in one of the overflowing drawers of his desk, Harry sat up straight and rightened his glasses, which he had almost knocked off his nose in his haste to store the files away.

He called out a scratchy "Come in" and a moment later the one and only Draco Malfoy stepped through Harry Potter's office door. Harry didn't know if it was due to his sitting position, but the blonde seemed to be even taller than he had been in their seventh year.

Harry involuntarily gulped as he let his eyes travel up Malfoy's lean frame, over the fine tailored robes that didn't quite seem to be cut out for field work, but clung perfectly to his narrow waist, up to his surprisingly pink lips and the piercing silver eyes Harry remembered all too well from their Hogwarts years.

But none of this compared to the shock that went through Harry at seeing Draco sodding Malfoy with long hair.

He had apparently let it grow out during the last couple of years so that it now reached well past his shoulder blades, almost down to his waist. It was currently tied back into an elegant braid and Harry had the inexplicable urge to run his fingers through the long strands to figure out if they felt just as soft as they looked.

Harry shook his head at this. What was he even thinking about? This was Malfoy after all! His ex-arch enemy and apparently his new Auror partner!

"Done daydreaming, are we, Potter?" said junior Auror sneered, probably annoyed at being ignored. Harry had been so preoccupied with his musings that he hadn't even noticed how the other had walked into the room and was now standing right in front of his desk. The sleep deprivation must be getting to him more than he'd thought, Harry concluded darkly.

"Whatever, Malfoy," Harry sighed. It was far too early to start a fight, Harry thought as he ran his hands through his hair. "You can have the desk over there, 's not like I'm gonna need it anytime soon."

Malfoy looked as if he was about to say something in return but thought better of it. He merely huffed out a sharp breath, proceeding to stroll over to the desk with an elegant sway of his hips. Which Harry totally did not look at.

"So what case can I assist you with today, Auror Potter?"

Harry raised his eyebrows at the polite tone, which, coming from Malfoy, seemed a little strange. He had heard Malfoy use that tone of voice before, of course, but it had never been directed at him. He also wondered why the other had held back the snarky remark, which had undoubtedly been on the tip of his tongue.

"Case? More like bloody tons of cases," Harry muttered darkly. He proceeded to levitate several thick folders over to Malfoy's still empty desk. "You can start with these. Just make yourself familiar with them, but don't take too long - these are supposed to be done by the end of... last week"

Harry expected some kind of sarcastic retort from Malfoy, a jab at his inability to finish his work on time, perhaps. But his new Auror partner simply huffed out an annoyed sigh and started to read the first case file, not acknowledging Harry's words in the slightest.

Harry remained staring at Malfoy's bowed head for several long seconds, but he decided that Malfoy's strange behaviour wasn't worth the additional headache and went back to work.

He had given Malfoy most of his minor cases for now, simple offences that mostly just required filling out some paperwork. Nothing major. Malfoy was the junior Auror after all. This way Harry could properly focus on his own latest assignment.

Just looking at the sheer amount of unconnected data, fragmentary evidence, and unreliable witness accounts made his already constant headache even worse. Harry once again wished for a headache potion, but they tended to make him a little drowsy and he really needed a clear head for this case.

Someone was breaking into ministry official's houses to steal. Though what exactly their mystery thief was after, Harry couldn't tell. "Bloody hell," Harry groaned, feeling the sudden urge to bang his head on the table in hopes of making all the loose ends magically fall together. He huffed out a breathless laughter at the mental image, which caused Malfoy to raise his head from his case files.

He looked at Harry as if he was seconds away from calling St. Mungo's to tell them he had a new patient for the insanity ward for them.

Harry simply shook his head – if at himself or at Malfoy, he didn't know – and turned back to his evidence. There had to be a connection somewhere, a missing link, he just knew it!

But neither the choice of the victims nor the stolen objects seemed to make any sense. A vase from an elderly lady who worked in the Foreign Affairs and Sports department, an old watch from a man from the Department of Magical Education, a tea set from a woman of the department of Magical Transportation, and the list went on and on and it simply wasn't making any bloody sense!

Harry once again ran his hand through his already messy hair in frustration.

The weirdest part, however, was that the stolen items mysteriously re-appeared after some time had passed. Sometimes it was days, sometimes weeks, and even months later, as it had been the case with the vase. It had not even been a pretty or expensive vase, nothing worth stealing at all, Harry thought. The thief had definitely not been after money. They'd left the jewelry of Mrs. Smith and the expensive wine collection of Mr. Andersson in their rightful place, instead opting for taking a family portrait and some cheap china ware.

The most concerning part, however, was that they couldn't seem to get the slightest hold of their thief. They simply couldn't stop him, not even slow him down in any way, shape, or form. None of their additional security measures had seemed to help in the slightest. Some houses had been under 24-hour supervision by experienced Aurors, and still the objects had mysteriously found their way back to their rightful place, for Merlin's sake.

It was bloody frustrating.

After brooding over the case for a solid four hours, Harry decided that he deserved a little break.

"Oi, Malfoy!" Harry called over to his new partner, "Want to come along to grab a bite?"

"And have a lovely chat with _your_ friends? The Weasel perhaps? No thanks, I think I'll pass." Malfoy drawled, not even bothering to look up from the papers he was currently working on.

Harry couldn't help but frown. "Whatever, Malfoy. I was just trying to be civil."

He stalked out of their office in search of Ron, maybe he would have an Idea about their mystery thief. Harry was already halfway there when he realized that he had forgotten his lunch in his office. Of course he had. Malfoy still managed to distract him the same way he had back in Hogwarts, the git.

As Harry walked back to their shared office, he noticed a tall, dark haired man walking in the same direction he was heading. Quite unusual, as Harry didn't know the guy and the Auror department was pretty secluded. People didn't just walk in here, unless they either worked there or had been invited over by someone.

What made Harry's eyebrows shoot up into his hairline, however, was that the guy seemed to be heading to one very particular office – his office. Well, his and Malfoy's office now. Curiosity got the best of him and he quieted his steps with well-practiced ease.

A couple of well-placed curses during raids had painfully taught him that in order to avoid unnecessary damage, one needed to be as silent as possible while observing.

He simply wanted to know what Malfoy was up to, inviting strangers to their shared office, on his first day no less. The stranger hadn't even closed the door behind him properly. Amateur.

Harry leaned back against the wall next to his office door, trying to appear casual and hoping nobody would question why he wasn't going inside his own office. But most of the Auror staff was either out on duty or at break, so he didn't have much to worry about.

Through the gap in the door he could see the man casually leaning against Malfoy's desk. Harry strained his ears, trying to listen in on their conversation.

He knew it was rude to do so, but he had never been very good at leaving Malfoy alone.

His lack of impulse control wasn't helping either.

If he wanted to work with the man as his Auror partner, he needed to trust Malfoy, and Malfoy surely wouldn't willingly tell Harry about himself, Harry reasoned. He knew his logic was flawed, but at the moment he couldn't care less. He was far more preoccupied with what Malfoy was up to this time.

Malfoy, who didn't seem all that displeased at the stranger's sudden appearance. Quite the opposite, actually. Harry watched the expression on Malfoy's face switch from confusion to a frown, just to morph into a grateful smile, quite unlike any Harry had seen on Malfoy before.

The source of that smile was apparently the small package the man had handed over to Malfoy. But Harry couldn't see what exactly that package was, as the man's back was blocking his view.

Harry slowly inched closer to the door. If he leaned forward just a little more, he would be able to –

Harry tripped. He tripped over the loose floorboard which he had intended to fix for weeks now because he always, without fail, tripped over it. But he had been so transfixed by the package that he had completely forgotten about it. He barely managed to catch himself on the doorframe before he fell flat on his face.

"Ah... um – lunch. I - uhh, forgot it and just went back to- there! I'll just... leave you alone now – sorry!" Harry spluttered as he awkwardly walked over to his desk to grab the brown paper bag he had left there. Both Malfoy and the stranger stared at him with matching expressions of confusion.

The strangers hand was frozen in mid-air, half raised as if to tuck a stray strand of Malfoy's hair back behind his ear. But Harry didn't even process that information as he bolted back to the door, his lunch in hand.

He hurriedly pulled the office door shut behind him and speed-walked to the break room, face burning as he tried to leave the awkward encounter behind him as fast as possible. What had he been thinking, spying on Malfoy like that? They weren't at war anymore!

Besides, it's not as if Harry had any interested in who Malfoy decided to spend his breaks with, right?

Before Harry had any more time to beat himself up over the encounter, he reached the break room and quickly spotted Ron's bright red hair amongst a small group of Aurors sitting near the broken coffee machine. Not even magic could make that thing work again, the coffee always tasted like soap water. Another reason as to why Harry preferred tea.

Harry tried to compose himself as best as possible. He approached Ron, but before he could reach him someone threw an arm over his shoulder.

"Look who the cat dragged in! If it isn't the partner switch-bitch! Got real lucky with the new one, eh Potter?" The Auror yelled, which was followed by collective laughter of the entire break room.

Harry sighed resigned. This would be a very long lunch break.

~ * ~

When Harry returned from his break, he was even more exhausted than he had been before. Instead of the relaxing lunch with Ron, along with a nice chat about their recent cases, he had ended up having to listen to the taunts of his fellow Aurors the entire break. This was, of course, accompanied by stories of how Harry had either lost, fired, and / or scared off his previous partners.

He was also fairly sure they already had bets running on how long Malfoy would last as his partner. Some had said he would only last days. The more optimistic ones said he'd make it to the end of the month.

Harry trudged into his office, tiredly rubbing his neck, only belatedly remembering the awkward encounter from earlier. Strangely enough, Malfoy didn't taunt him with it. Didn't even acknowledge him really. He just glanced up as Harry entered and returned to his work the next second. Weird.

But Harry was too tired to be overly concerned with Malfoy's odd behaviour and let himself fall into his chair. He just wanted this day to be over.

Even though he felt far from motivated, he rearranged his case files to go over the facts for what felt like the hundredth time in hopes of discovering that one tiny detail he could've missed before. Harry was sure he could recite half of the eye witness reports by heart by now.

On 6pm sharp Malfoy started to pack up his things. "Leaving already, Malfoy?"

"Yes."

Before Harry had any chance to react to Malfoy's brusque answer, Malfoy had already cleared his desk with a flick of his wand and marched out of their office with long strides, his elegant braid swishing behind him.

Harry closed his mouth, which he had opened to reply, and shook his head at Malfoy's behaviour. He wasn't at all like the boy Harry remembered from his school years. The Malfoy Harry knew would've never backed down that easily.

Harry didn't know what was up with Malfoy, but he was going to figure it out.

With his resolve firmly in place, Harry decided to finish for the day so that he could actually get some sleep. Because he knew from experience, if one wanted to figure out something about Draco Malfoy, one needed to pay a lot of attention to the details.

And in order to be able to pay attention to details, one needed sleep.

And for the first time since they had discovered the mystery thief, Harry went home on time.

~ * ~

It's been three weeks and Harry was still working together with Malfoy.

And every morning, without fail, someone would come up to him and ask how he and Malfoy were doing. And every morning Harry would answer that they were doing just fine, everything was going okay, no, he wasn't going to kick him out that afternoon thank you very much.

And every morning, without fail, that person would groan and head towards the break room, most likely to pay off their debt to the betting pool.

The weirdest thing was, Harry was telling the truth. Things really were going okay with Malfoy. Not good, not bad, just... okay.

Their work relationship was civil at best. Every morning, Malfoy would arrive at 6am sharp. He would greet Harry with a curt "Good morning" and sit down at his desk. Harry would say "Good morning" back and return his attention to his own case.

Then they would work quietly until 11:30 am, which is when Harry would head towards the lunch room for his break. Malfoy would stay behind to eat the lunch he brought with him from home.

Harry had given up on inviting him to the break room for lunch after Malfoy had turned him down with an annoyed "I'm not trying to get poisoned by your friends, Potter."

Apparently he was still worried about how people would treat him, being an Ex-Death Eater and all that. Despite not getting locked up, most people still couldn't see past what he had done during the war. They couldn't quite accept that Draco Malfoy, son of convicted Death Eaters Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, could possibly change his ways. His difficulties to find an Auror partner who was willing to work with him were a good example of that.

Harry suspected that another reason for Malfoy's adamant refusal to go into the Auror break room might be the fear of how these people, who had stubbornly refused to work together with Malfoy as their partner, would react to seeing him face to face.

Not that Malfoy would ever admit to that.

Merlin, every now and then even Harry caught himself thinking similar things. He caught himself waiting for Malfoy to react in a certain way, to sneer at the mention of a Muggleborn in a report, to try and trip Harry up or somthing like that.

But so far, Malfoy had done none of that, and Harry had to remind himself time and time again that the war was over now.

But as they say, old habits die hard.

Which is how Harry had noticed that Malfoy preferred to stay in thir office at all times in the first place. Harry wasn't even sure if Malfoy left their office at all throughout the day. He had never even seen him leave to use the restroom, but then again, he could've done that while Harry was in the break room.

This, however, was not the only thing Harry noticed about Malfoy. He also noticed that Malfoy would sit up a little straighter whenever Harry would return from lunch at the end of his break. He would also school his features into the blank Malfoy mask he had perfected over the years.

Harry told himself he didn't really care. He didn't care that Malfoy wouldn't even look him in the eyes when he spoke to him. He didn't care that Malfoy didn't even acknowledge Harry's presence most of the time and would rather talk to the wall than to him.

He told himself he didn't care, because this was far less annoying than the previous junior Aurors who had used every chance they got to talk to Harry, to ask him for his ideas on a case he had outlined several times before, who would trip over their own feed to try and give Harry a neck massage when he as much as hinted at a tenseness.

Harry wished he was exaggerating. He really did.

But the attention wasn't doing him any good. He hated being fawned over, praised for actions in a war he didn't want to remember, celebrated as the hero he didn't feel he was. Harry was still convinced that anyone would've acted like he did, had they been in his position.

All things considered, Malfoy's behaviour was a rather pleasant change.

But something was still bothering Harry, something about Malfoy. But he simply couldn't seem to put his finger on what on earth that was.

His mind automatically flickered to images of Malfoy brushing that one strand of hair that refused to stay put behind his hair, to images of Malfoy biting his lower lip in concentration until it turned red, Malfoy's piercing grey eyes narrowing everytime Harry did or said something stupid, and Malfoy visibly having to restrain himself from snapping at Harry on those occasions.

Harry had been so lost in his musings that he hadn't even noticed how Malfoy had walked in at 6am sharp and taken his seat. Harry also hadn't noticed how he had been glaring into thin air for several minutes. Well, that was until Malfoy had sat down. Now, the previously empty space wasn't as empty anymore.

"Do I have something on my face, Potter?" Malfoy finally snapped.

"Uh... I - what?" Harry spluttered, completely taken aback by Malfoy's sudden outburst. That was probably the first proper reaction he had gotten out of Malfoy since the lunch fail.

Malfoy glared at Harry and breathed out sharply through his nose, clearly about to retort something undoubtedly biting as a knock sounded on their office door.

They both looked equally confused. It was rather unusual for someone to come in this early in the morning.

As Malfoy didn't seem willing to react anytime soon, Harry called out a scratchy "Come in!" after a few seconds of awkward silence.

The door opened and in came the stranger Harry had seen with Malfoy that day several weeks ago. He lazily strolled over to Malfoy's desk, completely ignoring Harry's presence, and proceeded to plant a sound kiss on Draco's cheek.

Harry watched as Malfoy's pale skin flushed a light shade of pink. He didn't know wether he should be more surprised that Malfoy apparently wasn't nearly as straight as Harry had thought he was, irritated that he decided to meet up with his boyfriend during work when he had cases to focus on, or confused as to why the thought of Malfoy with a boyfriend was bothering him that much.

Apparently he could feel all of that at once.

"David, what on earth are you doing here?" Malfoy asked in that precise moment, drawing Harry's attention back to the couple on the other side of the room.

"You forgot your precious lunch at home again, princess. I was just kind enough to bring it over so you wouldn't starve, darling." the stranger, no - David replied, eyebrow wiggle and all.

Harry took an instant dislike to the man.

Malfoy, however, merely rolled his eyes. "I told you I'd be fine. You didn't have to bother coming over here."

"And miss seein your pretty face?" David gasped in mock offence, "I wouldn't miss that for anything in the world, princess!"

"I told you a million times already, stop calling me princess, dumbass!"

Harry was getting fed up with their bickering. Stupid Malfoy, with his stupid long hair and his stupid face, which somehow managed to look attractive even when it was twisted into a scowl like it was right now-

Merlin, had Harry just called Malfoy attractive? He really needed to get laid or something.

"As interesting as this conversation is, I'd ask you to resume it after work hours are over. Some people are trying to get stuff done here, so it would be positively lovely if you could postpone this until later." Harry seethed through his teeth.

Malfoy whipped his head up and threw Harry such a vicious glare that Harry's heart skipped a beat. Somehow he'd missed this side of Malfoy, the fiery one, the one that wasn't afraid to tell him exactly what he thought about Harry.

But currently he was far too annoyed with Malfoy and his boyfriend to care much about that realization.

"Our conversation is none of your bloody business, Potter!" Malfoy spat angrily. He was positively fuming by now, and Harry's heart rate kicked up a notch.

"It is when it's held in my office during my work hours!" Harry was shouting by now. All the pent up frustration over the seemingly unsolvable case, the lack of field work, over Malfoy's strange behaviour, which had built up over the past weeks, suddenly came back to the surface all at once.

Malfoy had jumped up from his chair, hand going towards his wand, no doubt about to yell back and mere seconds away from hexing Harry six ways to Sunday. In that moment David, who had watched the exchange with a bemused smile playing on his lips, raised his hands and slowly backed away towards the door.

"I'm gonna get outta here before y'all rip each other's throats out. I don't need to watch that bloodbath," David said on his way to the door. "You can thank me for the lunch later, princess!" and he was gone, the door falling shut behind him.

They both stared at the door in bewilderment for several long seconds, until Malfoy seemed to remember what they were doing less than a minute ago. He whipped his head back to Harry so fast, Harry was surprised it didn't give Malfoy whiplash.

Malfoy was most likely about to resume their earlier yelling when their office door opened once again.

"Did I interrupt something here, gentleman?" Robards asked, looking at the two furious men before him. "I hope there aren't any issues with your work relationship, are there? Mr. Malfoy? Mr. Potter?"

Both Harry and Malfoy grit their teeth. It was never a good idea to fight in front of the Head Auror if one wasn't a particular fan of cleaning duty and additional paperwork.

"No, Mr. Robards." They grit out in unison.

"Good, because I want the two of you to cooperate. There's been another break in, but something's different this time." Harry gulped at Robards serious tone. He did not like where this was going, at all. "They didn't just take an object this time," Robards continued, "they took their owner."

"Does that-" Malfoy halted. "Does that mean they kidnapped someone? Are we absolutely sure that it's the same person?" Harry nodded in agreement. It did seem quite unlikely that their thief would switch tactics so suddenly, and so drastically.

It was one thing stealing harmless objects, but kidnapping a person? That was an entirely different thing.

"Sadly yes," said Robards gravely. "The magical signature matches the one we've found at all the previous break-ins. There's no doubt that this is the same person. We need to stop them, before this gets out of hand. Who knows what else they're capable of."

Harry nodded grimly. It was indeed quite worrying, the thief had seemed so consistent at first - the volatile ones were always so much harder to catch. Unpredictable. Dangerous.

"I need you two to go to the scene and help collect evidence. Mr. Weasley and his partner are already there. Good luck, gentlemen." With that Robards nodded at them once and walked back out of their office.

"I think we better get going," Harry said, looking down at the paper slip Robards had handed him. It had a small key taped to it which was no doubt an emergency portkey straight to the crime scene.

"Hold on to my arm, Malfoy. Unless you want to walk there, that is." Malfoy grumbled unhappily in reply to Harry's order, but took his arm nonetheless.

Harry touched the small key and felt the familiar tug behind his navel pulling them towards their destination. Malfoy landed with far more grace than Harry had ever possessed, while Harry just barely caught his balance before he ended up facepalming into the muddy ground below. He tried to shake off the motion sickness that still accompanied portkey travel, and took in their surroundings.

They appeared to be standing in the backyard of a small house on the edge of the town.

He didn't have any more time to further assess their surroundings, as Malfoy, who was still grabbing Harry’s upper arm, dragged him towards the Aurors standing more towards the side of the house. Harry was about to complain about being manhandled, but decided against it. Resuming the fight from earlier would not be very helpful right now.

"Ah, there you are, mate!" Ron called out, already waving them over. From the frown marring his best friend's face, Harry could tell that they most likely hadn't made much progress with the case just yet.

"Hey Ron, found anything interesting so far?" Harry asked regardless.

"Nah man, the scene is as clean as all of the others we've been to. No signs of breaking and entering. Security spells still intact. No spell damage, no sign of a fight, no nothing!" Ron answered, clearly frustrated, running his hands through his hair.

"Have you secured the evidence yet?" Malfoy asked. It was merely a routine question, protocol, and yet the junior Auror standing next to Ron sneered at Malfoy, clearly pissed off.

"What do we look like, Malfoy," he spat venomously, "Bloody amateurs?"

Malfoy flinched slightly at the hateful tone, but otherwise didn't react. It dawned on Harry that Malfoy was most likely used to reactions like this from his Auror training, and Harry felt the sudden need to defend his partner.

But before he could say anything, Malfoy had already turned around on the spot to walk towards the open front door. Harry hurried off behind him, he wasn't about to let Malfoy walk alone into a house that someone's been kidnapped from mere hours ago. Ron would most likely tell the junior Auror off in his stead.

"Well then, Potter, let's get to work." Malfoy said, already pulling out several evidence bags. "They've most likely missed at least half of the important stuff," Harry heard Malfoy grumble to himself under his breath.

For now, Harry decided not to disagree and simply got to work, their argument about Malfoy and his boyfriend pushed to the back of his mind for now.

~*~

It's been two weeks since they had started their investigation, but they weren't any closer to figuring out their mystery thief-turned-kidnapper than they were before.

The Auror department had descended into chaos. Their inability to put a stop to the culprit had caused a public uproar. People began to panic, trying to upp their security as much as possible, as fast as possible. The pressure was on, and even Malfoy had elected to slack off from his immaculate 6am / 6pm schedule.

They were working overtime nonstop, nobody was willing to rest before they finally found the woman who had been kidnapped.

But what Harry had thought was chaos was nothing compared to the hell that descended upon the ministry after the second kidnapping happened.

Jackson. 28. _junior Auror._

An Auror, someone who had to be alert at all times, and who was trained in several different fighting techniques, had been kidnapped. The 'Daily Prophet' had a field day trying to dramatize the situation even more than it already was, which did not make things much easier.

_"Kidnapper on the Loose - Aurors Can't Even Keep Themselves Safe"_

Robards had basically told them that no one was going home until this case was solved.

"And you are not going off alone, do you hear me? You have a partner for a reason! No playing the hero, no trying to do this on your own, is that understood?" Robards had practically shouted at them earlier.

Harry couldn't shake the feeling that Robards’ last statement had been directed at him specifically.

~*~

Harry was exhausted, just like everyone else, but he and Malfoy kept working relentlessly. Slowly they were building a better work relationship. By now, Malfoy actually asked for Harry's opinion every once in a while, and they had started splitting their work in order to be more effective. Like partners, equals even, which was a refreshing change.

Plus Malfoy's boyfriend had not once showed up to distract them since they had started working together on this case. Harry tried not to think too hard into why that pleased him so much.

Instead Harry was regularly distracted by Malfoy himself. The way he would bite his lip whenever he was thinking hard about something, or how he would stir his tea like he'd stir a potion, with an expression of deep concentration on his face, which Harry found oddly endearing.

Malfoy would probably hex im silly if he could hear Harry think that.

The worst of all, however, was Malfoy's hair. The way he'd carefully braid it with his elegant fingers when it got in his face during work, or how he'd tiredly run his hand over the long strands when something was particularly frustrating.

Whenever a wayward strand would escape its confines and fall in Malfoy's face, Harry inexplicably wanted to reach out to tuck it away.

He found himself daydreaming at random times, Malfoy usually had to snap him out of it with a biting comment or two.

His fellow Aurors had also noticed the dreamy look on Harry's face, and rumors had it that Harry Potter, The Chosen One, was in love.

Not that these rumors held any truth.

Malfoy's snarky comments and were another change Harry found weirdly pleasant. He'd never thought he'd ever enjoy Malfoy's witty remarks, but he couldn't deny that he'd missed them previously.

A subdued Malfoy was a weird Malfoy.

After several days of working overtime together, they'd both been so annoyed and frustrated that they had started snapping at each other back and forth, having nobody else to lash out at.

In the wakes of the screaming match that'd subsequently ensued, they'd discovered that they could both focus better on their work after they took out their frustration on each other.

But after the third time that an Auror had stood in their office door, wand drawn, thinking someone was getting murdered - or that they were trying to murder each other - they'd taken to casting 'Muffliato's whenever they needed to vent.

"That doesn't even make any bloody sense, you git!"

"It's not like you have any better ideas, do you, scarhead?"

"Fuck you, ferret!"

"You wish, dumbass!"

"Wanker."

"Git."

"I used that one already. Running out of insults so soon, you prat?"

"Sod off, you twat."

It was a great form of stress relief.

Harry was also impressed with how efficient Malfoy was. He was surprisingly sharp and good at logically combining loose evidence. Slowly but surely, they seemed to at least get a vague profile of their mystery thief.

The victims most likely let him or her into their house willingly. They seemed to trust the thief / kidnapper enough to not expect an attack, or there would've been some kind of fight. The thief always seemed to know when the person was or wasn't home, depending on wether they wanted to kidnap or steal.

But so far, they hadn't been able to locate a single person who all of the victims knew. Much less one with an actual motive.

Suddenly Malfoy made an excited noise, startling Harry. "Potter! I think I found something!", he basically yelled. Harry almost tripped over his own two feet in his haste to hurry over to Malfoy, who was excitedly pointing at the mess of papers strewn all over his desk.

Harry's gaze roamed over the mess, a little at a loss as to what exactly Malfoy had found. Malfoy made an impatient noise and pointed at a bunch of papers looking like... bills?

"Okaaay, so they all... bought stuff. So...?"

"Ugh, Potter, how you managed to complete Auror training is still beyond me. Look!" Malfoy took out a quill and underlined several numbers. No, he underlined one number multiple times, Harry noticed.

"They all paid a lot of money to the same person, but we didn't notice, because our spells were inaccurate! We only looked for a reoccuring name, not a number!"

"Malfoy, that's bloody brilliant!" Harry exclaimed, noticing that not only the numbers of the vault were the same, but also the reason for the transactions.

'PRIVATE SECURITY SERVICE'

"They hired a private security company for their houses," Harry whispered, awed that they finally had their long awaited breakthrough.

"And we didn't even notice because the time gaps between the transactions and the break-ins are so irregular, and so far apart!"

They both shared an excited grin and hastily collected the bills, running towards Robards office as fast as they could.

~*~

Robards was ecstatic. He immediately gathered the entire Auror force in a meeting room to discuss the new developments in the case.

"Listen up, everyone!" Robards boomed, his voice magically enhanced. "Auror Potter and his partner, junior Auror Malfoy, have found something that could help us locate our culprit. Mr. Potter, please inform everyone about your findings."

Harry stepped forward and all eyes shifted onto him. He was immediately uncomfortable under the scrutiny of his colleagues, too much attention still made his skin itch.

"Um, actually it wasn't me that figuered this out, so I believe it's best if Mal- Mr. Malfoy here informs you of what we've found."

Several people started muttering darkly to each other as Malfoy stepped forward. Harry glared at them. That seemed to do the trick.

"Thank you, Mr. Potter. As Mr. Robards previously mentioned, we have found a connection between all of our cases that we previously overlooked. Thanks to the bills and transaction protocols generously provided by the victims, we have been able to locate a vault number, always attached to different names, which all of our victims have authorized payments to."

Malfoy, ever the drama queen, paused for what Harry assumed was dramatic effect.

"They all made transactions to a private security company to install updated security wards and various safety spells around their home."

At this, Harry stepped forward. "However, we've not been able to track down the company so far. The only thing we have is the vault number, and Gringotts will most likely refuse to give out the information as to who that vault belongs to."

"Thank you, Mr. Potter, Mr. Malfoy," Robards nodded towards them and they both stepped back again.

"I want you to talk to everyone who has authorized a payment to that company. Start with the break-in victims, ask them if someone recommended the company to them, and go question those people as well. We're looking for names, adresses, ways of connecting to the company, anything that could help us track them down. It's very likely that they either work together with our thief, or that our thief is using the security company as a pretence to install faulty security wards. Team up and get going, the faster we put a stop to this maniac the better!"

People scrambled towards the poor witch that was holding the lists with names of previous break-in victims Robards had prepared. As soon as they had retrieved their lists, the Auror teams were hurrying towards the floo systems, eager to finally leave their desk work behind and take action.

Harry looked at Malfoy, who still seemed to we brimming with excitement from their earlier discovery. He kept it well hidden though, but Harry, who had spent his last months (or years, if one were to count in their Hogwarts days) analyzing Malfoy, caught onto the subtle signs. Harry found it oddly endearing.

"Fantastic job, the two of you!" Robards was standing next to Malfoy now and gave him a hearty slap on the shoulder, which made the slender junior Auror stumble forwards a little. Harry had to hold back his grin, which would have undoubtedly earned him a glare from Malfoy.

"But don't think just because you were the ones to figure this out, you get to slack off. Get a list and off you go!"

Harry and Malfoy hurried over to retrieve their list. Harry took one look at the first name and groaned.

"Just great. We got Mrs. Smith."

"What's wrong with Mrs. Smith?", Malfoy asked, confused. "Sounds pretty normal to me."

"Just you wait and see," Harry grinned. Despite the seriousness of their situation, with two ministry workers still missing, this part should be fun.

~*~

Harry looked over at Malfoy and had to bite back a laugh. Malfoy was clearly concerned by Harry's odd behaviour and vague answers, and was now schooling his features into the blank Malfoy Mask.

Harry politely knocked on the door and was basically bouncing by the time he heard Mrs. Smith get closer to the door. He was anxious to see Malfoy's reaction, and he was not disappointed.

As soon as Mrs. Smith opened the door, the Malfoy Mask slipped and gave place to a wide eyed, almost slack jawed Malfoy Harry had never seen before.

"Ohhh Harry my dear, I didn't expect you back so soon! Please, do come in, come in! And who's this handsome friend of yours?" And then she reached out and pinched Malfoy's cheek! This was priceless. "Oh, just bring him in here too, will you, dear?"

Malfoy looked as if he couldn't decide what was scarier, the 5.2" powerhouse of an elderly lady that was called Mrs. Smith, or the interior design of the house which looked as if it was designed by Mrs. Figg and Umbridge together.

Pink. And cats. Everywhere.

Malfoy looked positively horrified, and he hadn't even seen the living room yet.

Two hours and three slices of pumkin pie, several treacle tarts, and three albums of cat pictures later, Harry and Malfoy had finally gotten a list with everything Mrs. Smith could remember.

She couldn't remember any details of the mystery thief's face, which strongly suggested the use of a glamour. She had heard about the company from a friend, Mrs. Meyer, who had apparently heard it from a man at the book market, who had heard it from Merlin knows who.

She said that her friend, Mrs. Meyer, had contacted the company for her. Just like Mrs. Smith, she had received a business card at the end of their appointment, for recommendation, she had been told.

Turns out the adress was that of a rent owlery, which you could access anonymously. A dead end.

After Malfoy and Harry had spent another 15 minutes trying to tell Mrs. Smith that no, they didn't want another piece of pie, yes, they were sure, no, they were positive her granddaughter was lovely but would surely find a nice man by herself when she choose to do so, and thanking her again for her cooperation, they finally made it out of the front door towards freedom once again.

It was already pretty close to midnight, which had not been planned, but Mrs. Smith was a force to be reckoned with. Once that woman was talking, there was no holding her back.

Harry was beyond exhausted, and as precious as time was right now, he didn't think he could function properly after this. Malfoy didn't look much better, although he hid it rather well.

"What do you say, Malfoy? Should we call it a night?" Harry asked, barely suppressing a yawn.

"Sounds like a plan, Potter." Malfoy replied a little sluggish.

"Alright, see ya tomorrow then, Malfoy! 6am sharp."

With that, Harry apparated home, falling into his bed with his robes still on, for once so thoroughly exhausted that he simply fell into a dreamless sleep in a matter of seconds.

~*~

Draco was exhausted. This case was really taking a toll on him, and Mrs. Smith didn't make things any better. If Draco had to take one more look at a cat named "Tibbers" or "Fluffy", he was going to puke.

He was already on the verge of apparating home, when an idea suddenly hit him.

He cast a quick disillusionment charm on himself and walked back to Mrs. Smith's house. He had read the reports on her case, of course, but he just wanted to be sure. Had to make sure by himself if the reports were really accurate.

Several different analyzation spells and a walk around the house later, Draco could've shouted with glee. Except that he was a Malfoy and still had a certain sense of dignity. Jumping around like a lunatic would not contribute to that.

He'd found nothing. Absolutely nothing was amiss with the security spells except for one tiny detail that one wouldn't have found if one didn't know what exactly to look for.

There were several white listed magical signatures, the ones of the house owner and their closest family, but one signature was different from the rest. Magical signatures could show family relations just as good as blood could, and one of them was definitely not family.

But the most thrilling part was the fact that Draco recognized the magical signature. Of course he couldn't be entirely sure until he had the official analysis, but he was fairly certain that this signature was identical with the one they had found at all of their crime scenes so far.

Draco was sure, come morning they would be one step closer to figuring out how their mystery thief worked.

Allowing a small grin to play on his lips, knowing no one would be in office this time of the night to tell about his findings, Draco apparated home, oblivious to the narrowed eyes watching him from the shadows.

~*~

Despite the exhaustion of the previous night, Draco was up at 5am the next morning. He'd been waiting for a chance like this, a chance to prove to everyone that he was a capable Auror willing to help people, to save people, not condemn them.

He could still see their faces at night, in the dark, taunting him, haunting him. People he'd disappointed, people he'd betrayed, people he'd seen die...

He firmly shook his head. If Draco had anything to say about it, the mystery thief wouldn't be able to get that far. He refused to believe that they were too late to save the victims, they still had to be alive. They just had to.

He looked at his owl sitting in her cage and decided to write Potter a quick message to meet him in their office asap. He'd be there at 5:30am sharp and Potter better hurry his ass up. Draco didn't like to be kept waiting. Besides, this information was far too important to keep to himself for too long.

But still, Potter and him had been working together as actual partners on this case. Draco thought it was only fair that Potter should be the first to hear of Draco's discoveries.

Dressing much faster than he usually would have, Draco hurried over to the floo system and disappeared in a roar of green flames.

Draco reached their office at 5:20am. Only ten minutes left until Potter would (hopefully) turn up.

He was pacing up and down their office. He'd merely thrown his winter cloak over the back of his chair, which was very un-Malfoy, but Draco didn't care right now. This was his chance to prove himself, and he'd be damned if he messed that up. He had a right to be nervous, for Merlin's sake!

He paused his pacing to cast a quick tempus charm - 5:28am, where the fuck was Potter? What was taking him so long? Wasn't their case important to him?

Probably not, it was not as if Potter had to worry about his position in the Auror force. They were already talking about how it was only a matter of time before the infamous Harry Potter would become head Auror. Draco, however, had had to wait three months before anyone'd even agreed to work with him as his partner.

He understood though, the Dark Mark - red now that its creator was gone - served as a constant reminder of the terrible things he'd done during the war.

He'd been working pretty damn hard on controlling his tongue the last couple of weeks, too. He was too afraid to say something he'd later regret. He had an entire list of things he regretted saying, at least half of them had been directed at a certain dark haired Gryffindor with his stupid hero complex.

Draco was about to resume his pacing when he spotted something odd.

Potter's mug, his favourite mug to be exact, was standing on Draco's desk. He shook his head at Potter's inability to clean up after himself.

Honestly, that man would never learn.

Chuckling to himself Draco picked up the mug, and their office disappeared.

Everything went black.

~*~

Harry was breathing hard and sprinting up the stairs as fast as he could.

First he'd been stopped by a man with a crazy look in his eyes, somehow wanting to talk about the Death Eater raid they'd completed several months earlier. He hadn't stopped asking question after question, and Harry hated being rude with a passion, but he'd simply interrupted the man at some point and ran off into the direction of the lifts.

Whatever Malfoy had discovered, the note he'd sent Harry sounded urgent. So did the owl, which wouldn't stop picking him until he'd opened the letter Malfoy had sent him.

To Harry's great dismay, the queue before the lifts was reaching through half of the entrance hall. After a quick tempus charm he cursed loudly and ran towards the stairs. Barely anyone used them nowadays, but sometimes, it was inevitable, like now, as apparation didn't work on ministry property and he was in a hurry.

He reached his office completely out of breath. He might me fit from Auror training, but there were only so many stairs a man could run up without being breathless.

Harry cast another tempus: 5:32 am. Almost punctual. He was certain that Malfoy would be waiting for him in their office, urgent as he'd sounded in is letter and punctual as he usually was.

Which is why Harry immediately knew that something must've happened when he saw Malfoy's precious cloak haphazardly thrown over his chair with Malfoy himself nowhere in sight.

Harry cursed under his breath and mustered up the last of his energy reserves to sprint towards Robard's office. Maybe, just maybe, Malfoy had decided to just tell Robards of whatever he'd discovered before Harry arrived.

But Harry's hopes were crushed as he saw that Robards was currently unlocking the door to his office, meaning he had just arrived himself and couldn't have possibly talked to Malfoy yet.

"Oh, Good morning Mr. Potter, here so early? How may I help you?" Robards asked.

Harry was still gasping for breath, but he managed to wheeze out "Have you... seen... Malfoy yet?"

Robards shook his head, looking a little confused but also slightly alarmed at Harry's current state. "No, I haven't, should I? What happened, Mr. Potter?"

Harry drew in a couple of deep breaths and told Robards as best as he could what had happened between them leaving for Mrs. Smith yesterday and him not finding Malfoy in their office that morning, albeit he was having quite some difficulties speaking through the panic clawing up his throat.

Thankfully Robards figured that Harry was in no state to think very logially and tried to calm him down. "Listen, Potter, I'm sure he's doing just fine. We'll make an announcement to check wether he's still somewhere here on ministry grounds. You go and get Mr. Weasley, he's ought to help you check your office for anything suspicious. He'll be fine, Mr. Potter."

Harry managed a weak nod and turned around to head towards Ron's office. Hopefully the redhead would come to work on time for once in his bloody life.

Just to make sure that Ron wouldn't decide to sleep in today of all days, Harry sent a quick message via patronus, explaining his current situation briefly. He knew Ron wasn't exactly on speaking terms with Malfoy, but surely he'd help Harry get his Auror partner back, right?

~*~

Draco had felt the tug of the portkey a fraction of a second too late.

One second he'd been picking up Harry's mug in their shared office, the next he'd been falling to the cold concrete floor of what Draco assumed was a warehouse.

Assumed, because seconds after landing he'd been hit by several spells at once. Now he was securely tied to a chair of some sort, blindfolded, and disarmed.

He could hear someone shuffling around, and the heavy clanking of metal on metal. He could also smell something coppery, and he was hoping it was the metal, and not blood.

Whoever was walking around suddenly stopped and got closer to Draco again.

"Ah, coming back around, I see," Draco heard the stranger say. "It really is a pity that it had to come this far, I really don't want to hurt you, you know? But you leave me no choice. It's nothing personal, darling."

Draco didn't recognize the voice, but at least he now knew that their mystery thief was a woman all along. Now that was a surprise.

He would've answered with a few choice words in return, but unfortunately, he was gagged. Pity.

"You know, I'd have been perfectly content with stealing some simple things for the hell of it, and maybe take a little ministry treasure or two every once in a while. But no, you and your little friends had to come along and ruin my plan!" the woman went on, pacing up and down in front of Draco.

He snorted at how chliché all of this was. The "Villain" talking about her "Evil Plan" right in front of him. Now all that was missing was the hero crashing the party and coming to his rescue.

Draco instantly thought of Potter, but shook his head at the thought. That was merely hopeful thinking, as if Potter would risk his life just to rescue a pathetic Ex-Death-Eater. Well, on second thought, Potter had done that once before already, saving him from the fiendfyre.

Stupid hero complex.

"I'm sure you're wondering why I'm keeping you here, sweetheart." the crazy bitch went on.

Draco gave her an unimpressed stare and hoped she could see it through the blindfold.

"Well, my darling, it's really simple, you see. You're just like the other two, you noticed too much. I can't have you destroying my plans and go blab it all to the ministry now, can I?"

Draco's eyes widened slightly at the mention of the other two kidnapped ministry workers. So this really was the same person who was behind all of the break-ins and the kidnappings.

"But you, you're so much more valuable than the other two." The woman went on in a sickly sweet voice. "You see, my darling, there's someone in the ministry who cares an awful lot about you. Someone pretty influencial."

Draco had to snort at this. Someone influencial who cared about him? In the ministry?

"Ah, I see you don't believe me. Well, you're not here for your brains, so it doesn't really matter now, does it?" Draco rolled his eyes behind the blindfold. This woman was clearly deranged. "Oh well, look at the time! Let's see what the ministry has to say to my deal. Your life for my freedom. Sounds like a fair deal, doesn't it?" the woman cackled.

Against all odds, Draco hoped that someone would come to rescue him.

He didn't dare hope for a specific someone.

~*~

Harry was in a downright panic now. They hadn't been able to find anything unusual in their office, except for one thing:

The kidnapper's magical signature.

Harry was screwed.

They had been so sure that they were one step ahead of the thief this time, were so sure they had an advantage.

And then the thief had somehow managed to get into the ministry and kidnap another junior Auror. Right under their nose.

Harry's only hope came in the shape of the bushy haired woman walking down the corridor at this very moment with purposeful, long strides and the arms full of books.

"Hermione!" greeted Harry, jumping up as soon as he saw her getting closer. "Please, I need you help, I - We've tried everything!"

"I'll do my best, Harry, but I can't promise you anything," she said . Hermione looked almost as tense as Harry felt, but she set to work immediately, throwing open her books and casting detective spell after spell, trying to figure out how Malfoy could've disappeared just like that.

Harry was nervously pacing up and down. He absolutely hated this, hated not knowing, hated not being able to do something, but Hermione had shooed him away when he'd tried to help.

"Harry, mate, could you please explain to me why we're putting so much effort into finding bloody Malfoy of all people?" Harry could hear Ron's honest confusion. Hell, he was plenty confused himself.

But currently Harry only had one thing in mind. "We have to find him Ron, we just have to! He's my partner!"

Ron gave him a strange look that Harry didn't care to think too much into. All he wanted to do was find Malfoy. Preferably fast.

"Harry, Ron? I think I found something!" Harry was at Hermione's side in a matter of seconds, looking cluelessly at whatever colorful spell Hermione had just cast.

"If this is what I think it is, you might have a problem, Harry." Harry didn't like the sound of thet. "If this spell is correct, which I believe it is, someone has used a portkey to kidnap Malfoy. And by the looks of it, Malfoy had most likely no idea that whatever object he touched was a portkey."

Harry had to close his eyes as his mind flashed back to the moment Cedric and him had touched the portkey, which had transported them directly to that graveyard, to the moment he watched Cedric die, and how he'd had to return with that very same key, holding Cedric's lifeless body in his arms..

"No..." he choked out. It couldn't be. Voldemort was dead, the war was over - why did yet another person have to be taken from him? It wasn't fair!

Harry was about to slam his head against the wall in frustration when it finally clicked.

Portkeys, only traceable when registered or on ministry grounds. Portkeys, created from simple day to day objects. Portkeys, which could be activated by a mere touch.

That was the puzzle piece they had still been missing!

That was how their mystery thief kidnapped people without them suspecting it! Because the thief wasn't technically there.

"Of course, why didn't I realize this sooner?" Harry wondered, sprinting out the door towards Robard's office to tell him about his revalation. He only faintly hears the voices of his two best friends calling him in the background.

He walks into Robard's office without knocking, wanting to take action as soon as possible. "Portkeys! They're using bloody portkeys! Both to kidnap and to steal! We have to find him, the thief kidnapped Malfoy! We have to hurry!"

"Slow down, Mr. Potter. Are you sure? Are you entirely sure it's portkeys? Because if that's the case we won't have a single clue as to where the portkeys are taking the victims. We'll have to set up a special investigation squad to..." But Harry didn't let Robard's finish his sentence.

"Special investigation squad? Are you insane? He could already be dead by then!" Harry fumed, turning on the spot and marching out of Robard's office again.

"Harry, mate? Where are you going?" Ron called after him.

"Finding Malfoy. Whatever Robards has planned, it'll take way to long."

"And how exactly are you planning on finding him? It's not exactly as if there's a destination written across it."

"The thief most likely transports everyone and everything to the same destination, right? That means we only have to find a portkey in one of the houses the thief hasn't stolen anything from yet!"

"Blimey, Harry, why can't anything ever be simple with you?" Ron groaned. "Wait up, I'm comin along!"

~*~

Now that they knew what exactly they were looking for, finding a portkey wasn't that hard. They'd simply went to one of the houses that had comissioned the security company recently, but hadn't reported anything as missing just yet. A detection spell took care of the rest.

"Listen, mate, I don't think this is a good idea. We have no clue who that person is, for all we know, this could be some elaborate trap of some sort! We should really wait for backup, at least that way-"

"We don't have that kind of time, Ron! Look, either you're coming along or I'm going off alone."

Ron snorted. "As if I'd ever let you go off alone to something as reckless as that. 'Mione would have my head!"

"On the count of three then." They both reached towards the thick encyclopedia which had been turned into a portkey. "One, two, three!"

And they disappeared.

~*~

They appeared in front of an old warehouse, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. The grounds around the warehouse were run down, it looked as if nobody had been here in ages. "Are you sure it's here, mate?" Ron asked, looking around wearily.

"It must be," Harry answered grimly. It had to be. This was where the portkey had taken them after all.

Harry drew his wand and stalked towards the front entrance of the building. He had his mind set on one thing, and that was finding Malfoy. He had to find him, had to make sure he was okay. He couldn't lose yet another person he cared about.

Ron pulled him back by his sleeve. "Bloody hell, mate, what on earth are you doing? Are you nuts?"

"Let me go, Ron!" Harry grit out, trying to free himself from Ron's grip. They didn't have any time to lose.

"Did you forget who we are dealing with here, you wanker? A bloody security company is what! You can't just go barging in through the front door. Do you have a death wish?" Ron whisper-yelled at him.

As much as Harry hated to admit it, Ron had a point. Seething quietly, he lowered his wand and turned towards Ron. "What do you suggest we do then?", Harry asked through clenched teeth.

"The same thing we always do," Ron answered in what Harry assumed was supposed to ba a 'calming' voice. "We check for traps, curses, way through the security wards. This is the Building Raid 101, remember? We've dealt with this before and you know it. You just need to bloody concentrate!"

Ron was right. How to get into warded buildings was one of the earliest things they learned in Auror training.

He merely nodded at Ron and they both cast the usual disillusionment and muffling charms.

After doing several rounds around the warehouse, they'd found several weak spots in the otherwise iron tight security wards. It was a good thing Ron hadn't let Harry storm off through the front door. The entire building was laced with traps and dark curses, and he would've most likely gotten himself killed. Seriously injured and severely cursed at least.

After they'd finished up their rounds, Harry and Ron met up in the security of the surrounding forest. "The security's really bloody tight, mate. I dunno if we'll manage to break through that alone. Maybe we should really wait for backup, and-"

But Harry didn't want to hear any of it. "I told you, we're running out of time! Who knows what they're doing to him, if anything happens to him..." Harry trailed off. He didn't even want to imagine that possibility.

Ron threw him an unreadable look. "You've really got it real bad, mate."

"What do you- nevermind, doesn't matter. I think we could be able to get through the wards on the window in the back, the one that's pretty high up." Harry said. They needed to plan this well if they wanted to succeed. If Ron was right about one thing, it was that they didn't have a single clue as to what was expecting them inside.

"You're right, that could work. It's still bloody difficult. Merlin's beard, Harry, what have we got ourselves into?" Ron sounded exasperated.

"It's too late to back out now. I think we should be able to break through the wards if we combine our spells. One of us breaks through the wards while the other deactivates the alarms and traps. D'you reckon that could work?" Harry questioned.

"I s'ppose so," Ron answered, his brows knitted together in concentration. "This better not get us killed though, or 'Mione will murder the both of us."

Harry shuddered at the thought. Even if they didn't get killed, Hermione would undoubtedly lecture them for their recklessness. Harry was not looking forward to that part, but right now, saving Malfoy was his top priority.

"Only one way to find out," Harry said grimly, already turning in the direction of the window they were trying to break in through. They most likely only had one single chance. Should they fail to deactivate the security spells correctly, they'd either set off the alarms or get themselves hexed. Neither sounded very pleasant at the moment, so they just had to make this work.

He squared his shoulders and walked off into the direction of their target, Ron hot on his heels.

~*~

Draco groaned in pain. The witch that had captured him had been 'torturing' him for the past few hours, trying to figure out how much exactly the ministry knew about her. Draco was not proud to say that whatever stinging hexes and curses she used were nothing compared to the excruciating pain Voldemort liked to cause for the slightest mistake. Or just for the hell of it, depending on his mood. He had been very generous with Cruciatus curses, as Draco remembered all too well.

The woman who was holding him captive - she was much better at body binding charms than at inflicting pain - had also been taking out her anger about not being able to use Draco as blackmail material on him. Apparently the ministry wasn't agreeing to her deal.

Gee, what a surprise.

Why on earth would they exchange a wanted criminal, who was endangering ministry workers as well as the ministry's reputation, against the life of a former Death Eater who should've been rotting away in Azkaban? Draco mentally rolled his eyes. Potter was probably doing a little happy dance at the prospect of not having to work together with him anymore.

Draco felt a small pang go through his chest at the thought and had to frown. He'd been so sure that he'd gotten over his stupid crush on Potter by now, it was hopeless after all, the man was straight as a pole. But Draco couldn't help it, after brushing Potter off for several weeks, unsuccessfully, he'd tried to go for the same tactic he'd used during their Hogwarts years - insult Potter to hell and back. But he couldn't deny that their insults lacked their previous malice and by now felt more - Draco had no other word for it - teasing.

That had not been the bloody plan, for Merlin's sake!

Draco was ripped out of his thoughts by a distant crash followed by a string of courses. He could've sworn the voice was male though. But that couldn't be, nobody was stupid enough to endanger themselves by coming to rescue him personally, right?

~*~

Harry cursed, loudly.

They'd managed to deactivate the traps and alarms on the window, but had not considered the window itself. The window, which was about as run down as the warehouse itself, which was a lot.

Long story short, the bloody thing was stuck. Unmoving. Not even magic seemed to be able to fix it enough to open more than a three-finger wide gap. "Hurry up, mate!" Ron hissed into his ear.

"Im trying, but the bloody thing won't budge!" Harry hissed back, currently considering the efficiency of a well-placed 'Bombarda'. The security spells were probably weaker here because their caster thought that the bloody window itself would be enough to keep intruders out.

"Just kick the damn thing in already, but dont forget to muffle- "

But it was already too late. The window shattered on the floor with a deafening crash.

"-the landing." Ron sighed. Harry cursed loudly, one leg already through the window.

"Hurry up! We gotta find Malfoy before the kidnapper finds us!" Harry called over his shoulder, jumping down from the window and just barely avoiding the shattered glass on the floor. He didn't bother being quiet anymore, if the kidnapper hadn't heard that crash, he wouldn't notice them talking either.

Despite his need to find his partner as soon as possible, Harry moved painfully slow. Ron and him practically walked along the dark hallways back-to-back, checking for more curses and traps all along the way while keeping their eyes open for any sign of Malfoy.

Harry hated not knowing what was going on, whether Malfoy was okay, if he was injured, if he would be okay – it was like Ginny and the Chamber of Secrets all over again. He felt the familiar panic clawing up his throat, his heartbeat speeding up, breaths becoming shorter and faster and-

"You okay there?" Ron asked concerned. He wasn't looking directly at Harry, eyes scanning the deserted hallways for any possible threat, but the genuine worry in his tone managed to relax Harry a little. He wasn't alone this time, and if he'd gotten through a Basilisk and Voldemort, multiple times, he could get through this one too.

Harry took a deep breath and nodded his head in the direction of a nearby door. He hadn't even noticed how they'd stopped walking. Ron nodded back and they both took their positions on each side of the door. They removed the spells in a similar fashion to the ones on the window and carefully walked into the room.

The room appeared be another storage unit whith metal poles and boxes of drills and nails all over the place. Harry's gaze swept over the room carefully, trying to catch any sign that someone had been in this room recently. The thick layers of dust covering the rusty shelves and the entire floor spoke for the opposite.

Harry and Ron looked at each other and simultaneously shook their heads. Nobody had entered this room in ages. They continued their search down the corridor, checking several doors along the way, but with no success. The warehouse appeared absolutely deserted, apart from the incredibly strong security wards in every nook and cranny. As the minutes passed, Harry continued to get more and more desperate.

His mind unhelpfully provided him with memories of Malfoy. The first time Harry had seen him genuinely smile. How one of their screaming matches had resulted in insults so ridiculous that they had been on the floor laughing with tears streaming down their cheeks for a solid ten minutes. Of Malfoy reprimanding him for leaving his mugs standing around at random places in their office again, but cleaning them and putting them back in their place nonetheless.

Working together with Malfoy at his partner had been an entirely new experience, and by now, Harry didn't know how he'd function without him. Malfoy had basically taken to managing Harry's mess of a life, nagging him to go to bed on time and actually getting some sleep, reminding him to eat when he forgot about it again, and so on. Harry hadn't even noticed how used he'd gotten to Malfoy by now. He'd be screwed without him.

Harry had been on auto pilot while he'd been lost in thought, but snapped back to reality in an instant when his spells picked up a sudden increase in security spells on a door to their left. The door was warded at least three times stronger than the previous ones.

This meant two things:

One, there was most likely something behind this door that required the additional security measures, like, say, stolen goods, or maybe hostages.

And two, they'd also need at least three times as much effort to break through these wards.

Harry would've just blown up the door, but there was still the small risk that the Malfoy and the other kidnapped people could be sitting right behind it. The risk of injuring them was far too high.

So Ron and Harry set to work, carefully disabling layer after layer of spells while doing their best not to trigger any of the alarms.

This could take a while, Harry bitterly thought.

~*~

Draco was getting nervous. His kidnapper had never disappeared this long before, and he worried that her deal with the ministry had failed completely, which would make him useless to her.

And what do you do with useless things? Right. Dispose of them.

Draco didn't particularly feel like getting disposed of today. He didn't get through a war against one of the most powerful dark wizards of all time just to be offed by a deranged woman who liked to steal objects, and apparently people, via portkey.

Speak of the Devil and he shall appear. Or think of the Devil and she shall appear, in his case.

He heard the door, which he had located towards his right, open and the unmistakable clicking of high heels on stone floor as his kidnapper walked towards him. If the speed and violence of her steps were anything to go by, she was pretty pissed.

"You!" She snarled at Draco. "This is all your bloody fault!" she snarled at Draco. Yupp, definitely pissed. Oh joy.

Draco tried to brace himself for whatever painful spell she would throw at him this time, but even though her curses hurt less than the Dark Lord's, they still hurt a whole lot, and Draco couldn't help the scream that escaped him.

~*~

Harry felt his blood run cold. The scream they'd heard had come from the other side of the door they were currently trying to unlock. And Harry was sure that it had been Malfoy's voice.

Throwing all caution to the wind, he frantically began breaking one ward after the other, not caring about the alarms, just wanting to get to his partner as fast as possible. As it was most likely the kidnapper who was hurting Malfoy, it didn't really matter. They would've been discovered as soon as they'd opened the door anyways.

"Harry, mate, slow dow- no, what are you... Merlin, you'll get us both killed!" Ron was frantically trying to keep up with Harry's spells and talk reason into him at the same time, but Harry wasn't having any of it.

Finally, the wards gave in under their constant ministrations and they were able to throw open the heavy door. It bounced of the wall loudly, but Harry barely registered the sound past the blood rushing through his ears at the scene that played out before him.

Malfoy was bound to a chair, his long hair stuck to his face in sweaty strands, bleeding from several wounds all over his body and breathing hard. Behind him stood a woman who appeared to be around the same age as them, want drawn, wild eyes skipping from him to Ron and back.

Harry saw red.

"Harry, No!" Ron yelled, but Harry was already sprinting towards the woman who had dared to lay hand on his partner. Too late did he realize that the wards on the door probably weren't the only security measures this person had taken.

He felt a sudden shove and stumbled to the side, barely dodging the rubble suddenly raining down on them from the ceiling, blocking the door in the process. The door with Ron still on the other side.

But Harry had other things to worry about right now, He whirled around and snarled at the women, wand drawn and already stalking towards her.

"How dare you touch him!" He snarled furious.

"See, darling?" The woman smiled creepily. "I told you there was someone important from the ministry who cared about you, didn't I?"

She seemed to be addressing Malfoy, which was just as well, as Harry didn't have a single clue as to what the hell she was talking about. "What a pleasure to finally meet you, Mr. Potter," she went on, this time addressing Harry.

"I would say the same about you, but I must not tell lies" Harry answered, wand pointed at her head.

The woman didn’t appear to be at all worried about being held at wandpoint. “Now, now, we don’t want to go around firing curses at people now, do we? Someone could get _hurt._ ”

Harry took another threatening step towards her. The woman didn’t seem to be all too concerned. “You see, Mr. Potter, I’ve offered the Ministry a deal. A simple one, really. You leave me alone, I give Mr. Malfoy here back. Sounds like a deal, doesn’t it? Well, the Ministry actually rejected my generous offer, and I was just about to, ah, _dispose_ , of Mr. Malfoy here. But I bet someone of your standing could convince the minister that it would be foolish _not_ to take this deal, right?” She smiled at him, feigning innocence.

“You’re mad if you think you’ll get through with this. You’ve done far too much damage to be let off just like that!” Harry snarled. If this woman thought she’d walk out of this as a free witch, she was gravely mistaken.

“But you see, Mr. Potter, I didn’t _want_ to cause any damage. I simply enjoy a riddle, a _challenge_ every once in a while. And what’s more exciting than breaking the rules? Breaking the rules and taking from those that made the rules?” She cackled. “But I was a good girl, wasn’t I? I always gave back what I took away!”

“You’re mad,” Harry said. The woman oddly reminded him of Bellatrix, just less deadly. “You’re absolutely mental and I think it’s best for you if you just give up now. I don’t want to use force, but I will if I must.” Harry tried to reason.

She only laughed at him. “Oh, Mr. Potter. I was smart enough to break into the Ministry, I managed to kidnap two Aurors so far, and if you think that your bloody name will make you an exception, you’re utterly wrong! The Dark Lord might not have been able to kill you, but I will!” she shrieked at him.

Harry had been taking careful steps towards her, trying not to alert her. They were only a couple of feet apart by now, just a little closer and he might be able to break Malfoy's bounds unnoticed-

But Harry didn't get to that as the woman had suddenly opened the spell fire, and the duel was on.

They fought tooth and nail, as they both had something very important to lose. The woman would lose her freedom, and Harry would lose his partner.

Malfoy. No, _Draco_. He would lose Draco, and he couldn't bear the thought.

Harry stumbles as realization suddenly hits him. So _that's_ why he hadn't been able to take his eyes off of his Auror partner lately! The reason why he noticed all the tiny details about Draco no one else was aware of, and why his heart seemed to skip a beat whenever the other man directed one of his rare, genuine smiles at him.

And Harry couldn't help himself, despite the curses flying past him left and right, he smiled at the revelation that he had a huge crush on Draco sodding Malfoy.

The timing for this realization, however, couldn't have been worse. Harry felt a sudden pain in his left shoulder, where a stinging hex had hit him, and heard another one zing past his ear dangerously close. He barely deflected the curse aimed at his head, but was too late to dodge the one going for his chest.

Or he would have been too late, had he not been tackled to the ground in the last second.

He was now pinned beneath a very handsome, and very angry Draco Malfoy. Harry remembered the discovery that had led to him ending up in this position in the first place and couldn’t help it, he grinned up stupidly at the panting man above him.

“You look absolutely stunning like this, did you know?” Harry was still smiling like a lunatic.

“I always look stunning, thanks for noticing, Potter. You must’ve taken a blow to the head after all.” Draco mumbled the last part to himself, not looking Harry in the eyes. His gaze snapped back up to Harry’s in an instant though, alight with a fire that made Harry’s heart do funny things again.

“Potter, what the actual fuck? You absolute wanker! You giant fucking idiot, what in Merlin’s name were you thinking?!” Malfoy yelled in his face. He was so close now.

“I love it when you get all angry and passionate, you know that, Draco?” Harry was still grinning as he took in Draco’s shocked expression, if at Harry’s confession or the use of his first name, Harry didn’t know. He didn’t particularly care either.

“I- what… Potter, if this is some kind of sick joke I swear I- “ But what Malfoy would do Harry never found out, because he’d already pulled the man above him down and finally, finally kissed him. It was sweet and messy and desperate, and it was everything Harry didn’t know he ever wanted.

It was perfect.

Well, it was perfect before Draco pulled away to resume his earlier yelling. “Potter, we’re in the middle of a bloody fight, you could’ve died, you wanker!”

“Nah.” Harry had to smile at Draco’s exasperation. “Been there. Done that. I’m _The Boy Who Lived Twice_ , remember? I don’t really do this whole ‘dying’ thing.” He was grinning again.

“Potter, I swear to- “ But Draco was interrupted by an awkward cough. Harry finally tore away his eyes from the gorgeous man above him and spotted his best friend standing a few feet away, looking anywhere but them, face on fire.

Draco, much to Harry’s disappointment, hastily scrambled up as fast as his bruised body would let him. Harry also got up, but at a much more moderate pace. He was still smiling as he watched Draco straighten his rumpled clothes and attempting to school his expression, probably trying to regain his composure, despite his bright red face.

“Well, while you two were, uh, busy, we – that is, Jackson and I – managed to arrest that bitch. I mean witch. We’ll take her to – to the Ministry for a hearing ‘n stuff. We also found the other one - the woman I mean, but she’s in shock, so we’ll take her to, uh, St. Mungo’s. You two should probably also get checked for, like, spell damage or something. No offence, Malfoy, but you look like shit.” Ron stammered out.

“Well thanks, Weasley, where would I be without your professional assessment.” Draco sneered, but seeing as he looked like he was three seconds away from collapsing on the spot, it wasn’t particularly threatening.

“Whatever, Malfoy.” Ron replied before awkwardly shuffling away in the direction of Jackson, the junior Auror who had been kidnapped before Draco, and whom Ron must’ve found on his search for a way around the collapsed door.

Harry took one look at the way Draco was swaying on the spot and agreed with Ron. “He’s right, you know? We should get you checked out. Who knows what she did to you!”

Draco batted his hand away. “Oh, I’ll be fine, Potter. Quite frankly, I’m used to so much worse than this. Good ole Voldy decided to camp in my house, remember?” Draco said dismissively.

Harry, however, was not convinced. “Draco, this is in no way comparable to the war! Even this – I still can’t believe she basically tortured you before we found you! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Draco sounded genuinely confused. “Potter, what on earth could you possibly be apologizing about?”

“I should’ve been there sooner, figured this out faster, I let her hurt you, Draco!”

 “Merlin, Potter, you giant oaf! Literally nothing of what happened here is your fault! You shouldn’t be apologizing, I should be thanking you. Nobody else would’ve come for me, but you did.”

Harry saw images of the worst-case scenarios flash before his eyes. What if he had reached Draco only minutes later? Would he even be alive by now? The thought was too much to bear and he had to wrap Draco up in a strong hug.

Perhaps a little too strong, because Draco cried out in pain, flinching away from him.

“Fuck – shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I- “ Harry stammered, immediately letting go of Draco.

“Oh, do calm down, Potter. I’ll live. But as much as I hate to admit it, the Weasel might be right about one thing. We should definitely get these wounds checked out and healed up, they’re getting slightly annoying.”

“Well, I’m not a particular fan of hospitals. I’d say we stop by one of the emergency healers to check for spell effects real quick and go to my flat after. I should still have some leftover healing potion there.” Harry suggested.

Draco snorted. “Potter, I do believe that emergency healers are there for, well, emergencies. I’m pretty sure a few scratches can be considered an emergency.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m Harry Potter and most of them owe me a favor or two. We’ll just catch one in the break room, that way we won’t keep them from any actual emergencies now, right?”

Draco shook his head, but the small smile playing around his lips betrayed his apparent exasperation. “How very Slytherin of you, Potter. Fina, we’ll do it your way then. My head hurts too much to think about just why exactly that’s a stupid plan”

“Then don’t,” Harry grinned. He offered his hand to Draco, and his heart skipped a beat as his Auror partner took it. He couldn’t believe how well Draco was taking all of this. He was just hoping that wouldn’t change once the exhaustion from this day wore off.

He side-alonged Draco to St.Mungo’s, where they went off to hunt down a healer on break. After they’d been cleared – much to Harry’s relief, he really didn’t feel like staying in the hospital for an extended period of time – they apparated to Harry’s flat in London.

“It’s not much, nothing like your manor, but it’s something, alright?” Harry was strangely nervous about showing Draco his small home. But he shouldn’t have been worried, as Draco stepped inside with an awestruck expression on his face.

“I love it,” he whispered. “It’s so… homey. So you.”

Harry let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and went towards the kitchen to fetch the painkiller potions from the medicine cabinet. The healer might’ve healed the scratches on the surface, but healing charms could never soothe the bone-deep ache which always seemed to accompany spell-induced wounds.

Harry also got a pepper up potion for Draco, as he had still looked quite sluggish upon their arrival. He also hadn’t said anything about Harry kissing him yet, which was a little worrying and made Harry’s stomach flutter with nerves. But first, they had some potions to take.

“D’you want anything with that?” Harry asked. Healing potions didn’t exactly taste like pumpkin juice and treacle tarts.

“Hmm?” Draco turned towards him, he had apparently been staring at… the wall? Yea, he could definitely use a pepper up potion, Harry decided. “Oh, no thanks. I’m still pretty sure that diluting potions decreases their efficiency.” Draco said in reply to Harry’s earlier question.

Harry shrugged and handed Malfoy the potion vials. “I also got you some pepper up, you look like you could use it.” He turned around and went towards his kitchen, he was going to dilute his potion, efficiency be damned. Wouldn’t be any good for him anyways if he just spit it back out due to the taste.

He was just taking out some pumpkin juice from the fridge when he heard a crash from the living room.

Harry bolted.

~*~

Draco watched Harry retreat to the kitchen with a loopy smile on his lips. The lopsided grin Harry had directed at him when he had handed Draco the potions had done funny things to his heart. Merlin, Potter was turning him into a sodding sap.

Better get this over with, he thought as he uncorked the vials. Even though he knew they were more efficient this way, he still wasn’t looking forward to the taste. Draco looked at the potions with disdain and downed them, each with one gulp. He pulled a face and shuddered at the taste. Thank Merlin Weasley and Potter hadn’t been around to see that, or he wouldn’t hear the end of it.

He looked out of the window of Potter’s admittedly surprisingly nice flat and watched the first couple of snowflakes fall outside as he felt the potions start working. The terrible ache all over his body finally began to fade, and the sluggish feeling that had been clouding his mind was starting to lift.

That’s when realization suddenly hit him.

The potion vials slipped from his limb hands and shattered on the floor, but Draco was too shocked to care. Potter. They had _kissed._ No, _Potter_ had kissed _him,_ for Merlin’s sake!

And he’d thought the bloke was straight.

He heard hurried footsteps behind him and whipped around. His narrowed eyes landed on a worried looking Potter, his who’s green eyes darted around the entire room before finally landing on the shattered vials at Draco’s feet and slowly, ever so slowly lifted up to meet Draco’s grey ones.

“Potter!” Draco snarled, lips curled back into a sneer. “What on _earth_ were you thinking, kissing me like that?”

Potter seemed to deflate before his eyes, expression crumbling from the surprise at Draco’s outburst to something hurt before finally settling on resignation. He looked like he was about to say something, watery eyes not meeting Draco’s, but Draco was having none of it.

“We were in the middle of a bloody fight, for Merlin’s sake! You could’ve gotten yourself _killed_ , you absolute wanker and instead of fighting you decide to kiss me? Right there? When we have a perfectly fine shared office in the ministry together, with far less deadly curses flying around?” Draco was right up in Potter’s utterly infuriating face by now. He was fuming.

And what did Potter do? He bloody _smiled._ The git looked as if Draco had just announced that Christmas came early this year.

Potter was grinning ear to ear, reminding Draco ridiculously much of an excited puppy. “So you’re telling me that you didn’t mind the kissing part? Really?” He looked at Draco with so much hope in his eyes that Draco couldn’t help but soften his expression a little.

“Of course _that_ was the one thing you would pick out of my rant, Potter. But to answer your question, no, I didn’t mind _that_ part. What _was_ bothering me were the bloody curses zinging past us while you were busy snogging me, in case you didn’t notice!”

“Oh, thank Merlin,” Potter sighed. Then the infuriating man proceeded to pull Draco into a bone crushing hug. Draco was half tempted to push him away, as he was only half finished with his rant, but when he felt the tension sagging out of Potter at the contact, and how he buried his head in the crook of Draco’s neck, he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

Potter’s voice was muffled, but Draco still heard him when he said, “Did I ever tell you that you look bloody gorgeous when you’re angry?”

Draco snorted in surprised amusement, and much to his embarrassment, he could feel a light blush creeping onto his pale cheeks. “Only you would think that. Git.” He could feel Harry – he couldn’t possibly think of him as _Potter_ anymore after this - laugh into his shoulder and sighed happily. This really did feel nice, Draco thought, as he pulled the other man even closer

Just then their moment was ruined by Draco’s stomach, which decided that this was the perfect time to complain about the lack of food throughout that day. Draco had skipped breakfast that morning, too anxious to get to the office to bother eating, and his kidnapper hadn’t exactly fed him. The blush on his cheeks darkened, and Draco mentally cursed his pale skin.

Harry chuckled and raised his head from its resting place on Draco’s shoulder. Draco immediately missed the warmth. “Sounds like someone’s hungry,” Harry teased.

“Oh, shut it, Potter.” Draco slapped his shoulder lightly. He had already embarrassed himself enough today, he was not about to do so further by letting the git hear him use his first name just yet.

“I could make you food, you know? Oh, don’t look at me like that, I can actually cook, Draco!” Harry said, mocking offence.

Draco would’ve probably teased him some more, but he was actually quite hungry and would probably eat pretty much everything at the moment. Well, not _everything_ , but you could catch his drift.

“In that case, Potter, I think I’ll endure your cooking in favour of not starving to death.” Draco replied, taking a step back. This sadly required letting go of Harry, but some sacrifices had to be made, and now that his stomach had alerted Draco of its need for food, Draco couldn’t ignore the hunger anymore. He proceeded to strut past Harry, who still had a stupidly big grin on his face, towards what he assumed to be the kitchen.

“The kitchen’s the other way, Draco.” He heard an amused Harry say from behind him.

Huh, not the kitchen then. Draco turned around mid-step and marched the other way, past a chuckling Harry. He had certainly hit his fill of embarrassment for the day, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Not after the discovery that Potter surprisingly, inexplicably, somehow liked him back.

And absolutely no one could blame him for the stupid grin on his face that almost rivalled Harry’s.

~*~

Harry was absolutely delighted.

He was still standing in the middle of his living room, smiling like a lunatic, still not quite believing what had just happened. He was startled out of his trance by Draco, who yelled at him from the kitchen.

“Are you coming, Potter? I’m gonna starve right here on the spot if you take much longer!”

Harry chuckled at his demanding Auror partner. He was beyond happy that he had been able to get to him on time that day. But if his words were anything to go by, he’d have to save him again, this time from starvation.

“I’m on my way, you demanding prick!” He chuckled.

He walked into his kitchen and outright laughed at the scene in front of him. Draco was sitting on his kitchen table, long legs crossed at the ankles, fingers drumming away impatiently on the tabletop. He had somehow found an apple and was now chewing away on it angrily, his scowl failing to look even remotely threatening with his cheeks stuffed full of apple.

Harry decided not to tease him more for now and instead got to work on the food. He really enjoyed cooking, and was looking forwards to preparing a meal for two people instead of only himself for a change. He took out the ingredients he’d need and started chopping the vegetables while he waited for the stove to heat up.

“Potter, what on earth are you doing?” Draco sounded downright horrified. Harry had no idea why.

“I’m… cooking?”

“Yes, I can see that, but _how?_ I know for sure that there are several spells that could take care of that in an instant!”

Harry had to chuckle at Draco’s antics. “Yea, I know, but I like to do it the Muggle way, you know? I like using my hands, this is how I learned to do it. Using magic to cook is just… weird.”

“You’re the weird one, Potter. Really weird. But honestly, I don’t care right now as long as I get food out of it, so it’s whatever.”

They bickered back and forth while Harry prepared the food, only now noticing how hungry he was himself. Finally he had managed to set their food to cook on the stove, and could now turn back to Draco, who was still lounging on Harry’s kitchen table like he owned the place.

Harry was surprised at how normal all of this felt. He didn’t want Draco to leave anytime soon, and if Harry had anything to say about it, he wouldn’t. They had been dancing around each other for far too long, so now that he finally had Draco with him, in his home, he wasn’t going to let him go easily.

He stalked towards Draco and leaned into his personal space, crowding him further against the table. He was just leaning in to steal another kiss, like he’d been wanting to do ever since Draco had lectured him in the living room, when a sudden thought struck him.

“Wait, didn’t you have a boyfriend?” Harry asked bewildered.

Draco’s eyes, which he had most likely closed in anticipation of the kiss, snapped back open. His brows were knitted together in confusion, before realization seemed to dawn on him.

“Oh, are you talking about David?” Draco asked. At Harry’s stiff nod, Draco snorted.

“He is my _roommate_ , Potter. My bloody roommate. He just likes to tease me, I think it’s, like, his personality or something. But Potter, I swear, if you still manage to think about other men while you’re about to kiss me, I’m doing something very wrong.”

That invitation was all Harry needed to lean in and finally kiss Draco. He had to laugh into their kiss, relieved that Draco didn’t have a boyfriend after all. He stopped laughing as soon as Draco dug his fingers into Harry’s hair though, instead moaning lowly and opting to deepen their kiss.

Harry raised his hands and finally did what he’d been wanting to do for ages. “You and your bloody stupid long hair,” he murmured against Draco’s lips in between pecks. “Fuck, how long I’ve been itching to do this,” Harry groaned, running his hands through the long, blond strands.

He undid the hair tie that kept Draco’s hair out of his face and marveled at the way it fell over his shoulders and down his back. Draco’s lips distracted him though, and he switched his attention back to their kiss. He would’ve spent the rest of the evening snogging Draco, but suddenly the timer for their food went off. Harry jumped back in surprise, managing to bump their noses together in the process. Painfully.

They locked eyes as Harry rubbed his sore nose, and simultaneously burst out laughing. Draco almost fell off of the table because he was laughing so hard, the rest of the tension, which had built up throughout the day finally leaving him. Harry wasn’t doing much better, but still somehow managed to turn off the stove and set the table, carefully avoiding Draco, who was still - dare Harry say it - _giggling._

Harry couldn’t help himself, he leaned over to steal another quick peck from Draco.

And as they sat there at the kitchen table, trading insults and sharing laughter, Harry thought that this was probably the happiest he’d been in a very, very long time.

He thought the same thing again when Draco, one month later, gave him back his favourite mug for Christmas. He had gone through the trouble of retrieving it from the warehouse it had previously transported him to, and even went as far as fixing up the chipped paint and scratches.

He thought so again when Draco, after several months of dating, finally agreed to move in with him, and Harry now woke up to the sight of long blonde hair spread over their pillows in the morning every single day.

And again, when Draco finally told him that he loved him, a shaky whisper in the dark, sounding so terribly uncertain and scared.

And when several years later Draco finally said “I do”, carefully sliding a golden ring over Harry’s finger, he thought that this was probably the happiest he’d ever been.

**THE END**

**Author's Note:**

> Whew, this was my first time ever writing a fanfiction, and it's not even in my native language.  
> So please don't be too harsh on me, I struggled quite a lot with this, but I promise I did my best!
> 
> (Also this was supposed to be around 6K words originally, but as you can see, things escalated a little. Whoops.)
> 
> I hope you liked it anyways, and as per usual, comments & Kudos would be greatly appreciated!


End file.
